This is not an apple, it's a pipe.

It is the nature of Evolution and the human mind to repurpose what exists into what could be: to innovate, experiment, and sometimes to improve. The fate of such change is almost always failure–99.9 % of all species to ever have lived are extinct and 95% of new businesses fail within 5 years–but occasionally unplanned, unimagined, and even unwanted uses and abilities surpass the ability, potential, or popularity of the original.

This isn’t a simple re-purposing, such as using an apple or corncob to create a pipe; such uses don’t surpass the original nor are they particularly exemplary in their new form.  Though I couldn’t resist bringing surrealist painter René Magritte into this thought stream by combining two of his images which both ask about the fundamental nature of reality, representation, symbolism and existential identity.

In branding, especially in branding dogs, I think the community is way too hung up on the past–and often an artificial past–in how we define and value our dogs. We turn them into symbols and representations and we place the story over the existential truth.

Conformation shows are very much about the painting of the pipe versus the pipe itself. The goal of a painting is to exhibit the skill of the artist, not to make a superior pipe. The painting just has to LOOK like a wonderful pipe. Then, as artists are want to do, trends and abuses turn into movements and in some epochs the art is realist, even romantic, other times it’s impressionistic and then downright absurd.

Conformation is all about the change, never about performance.

The trialists are also absorbed in the past, but in a different way; they are fundamentally against the evolution and repurposing of dogs. They find value in the antique nature of the breed and revel in stasis and reenactment. While a performance standard does speak to an existential truth (and this is why we don’t see the grotesque distortions we find from conformation artists), it doesn’t prevent the performance task from becoming obsolete or surpassed in popularity.

Trials are all about performance, never about change.

So what happens when we don’t constrain either of those variables and take a measure of what is produced in an existential, realist, and measured manner?

The Internet is for social networking and porn.

The Internet was funded by the Department of Defense for use by the military.  National defense and elite scholarship were the original use and designing factors governing its design.  Now, the military and elite institutions are taking more and more of their networks offline and spend fortunes putting up barriers to those that are still connected to the Internet.

In reality, the Internet is primarily for social networking and pornography, not national defense or scholarship.  An impartial observer who was not indoctrinated in what the Internet is supposed to be or what it was in the past would hardly notice the national defense and scholarship aspects and would declare it to be a massive undertaking which people use to convince others that they are having lots of sex followed closely by actually viewing images and videos of strangers pretending to have lots of sex.

Last year, social networking surpassed pornography as the most popular use of the internet and more social networking activity takes place over the Internet than any other outlet.  Likewise, pornography is the second most common use of the Internet and more people get their pornography over the Internet than any other source.

These are unintended and arguably unwanted developments in the use of the Internet, but the reflexive superiority of the task and the platform  are undeniable.  It’s not for education or defense, it’s for social wish fulfillment and fantasy.

Love and other drugs: Viagra and Ecstasy are far more popular for carnal pursuits than for their original medical uses.

While we’re on the subject of unexpected innovation for purposes of initiating or aiding sexual activity, here are three examples of other tools (all pharmaceuticals in this case) which have surpassed their initial use in pursuit of that goal.  Viagra was developed specifically to treat hypertension and angina, with zero thought or design given to a secondary use as an erection inducer.  It wasn’t until the drug made it to human trials that it was found to be useless for angina but effective for increasing blood flow to the penis.  That is now its primary use and it is the primary drug prescribed for that condition.

Methylenedioxymethamphetamine was first synthesized a century ago as an intermediary product in part of a Merck plot to plagiarize a successful Bayer drug used to treat hemorrhages.  Its psychotropic effects wouldn’t be appreciated for another six decades after it had been investigated as an appetite suppressant and decongestant like Ephedrine, and later as an analog to Mescaline in a study done by the US Army.  MDMA found its way to the streets by the 1970s and soon into the basket of drugs offered to patients by psychotherapists. Ecstasy was classified as a Schedule I controlled substance by the mid 1980s, but that didn’t prevent its rise to prominence as a recreational drug second only to Marijuana in popularity, passing Cocaine and Heroin as drug-of-choice for first illicit drug experience.

Latisse is a far more popular cosmetic than it was a medical treatment.

Bimatoprost (“Lumigan”) was a rather unremarkable member of a family of drugs (prostaglandins) used to treat glaucoma until it was discovered that a side effect of the drug was the darkening and thickening of the eyelashes.  Rebranded as “Latisse” the drug is now FDA approved for cosmetic use and is being sold as a beauty product.  Its value as a cosmetic has already far surpassed its use as a medicinal drug.  It is the only drug approved for cosmetic eyelash enhancement, so it currently dominates a much larger market than its previous incarnation as one of many treatments for hypertension in the eye.

This is not a phone. It's a clock with some extra features.

Perhaps the most obvious approachable and active nursery for useage drift is the cell phone.  It’s hardly a phone any more, as by any measure what used to be subordinate bonus features are now vastly more popular than the once sole raison d’être of the phone: to make voice calls.  Teens send 6 times as many text messages as phone calls and even the least likely to text adults still use that feature more than dialing calls.  The most popular use of the device is actually to tell the time though, and the ubiquity of cell phones has made the wrist watch an increasingly obsolete tool.  Applications and Games have recently surpassed Internet browsing and e-mail as the largest share of data bandwidth and now people spend more time listening to music on their phone than making phone calls.

We might call it a phone, but that’s hardly its main use anymore.  While there are still single purpose phones in the world, their use is dropping like a stone and the number of cellphone only households has surpassed the number of landline only households and the recession has caused many dual-phone households to ditch their landline to save money.  The landline will likely live on, but only at a fraction of its previous popularity and in instances where the downside of cell phones (reliability, battery driven) make them impractical.

A dog is what you make of it and more people are making sport dogs than working dogs.

All of these tools were manipulated by man into filling a niche use.  So too is the dog a man-adapted tool that has been continually manipulated to fill existing and new human niches.

So what IS a Border Collie then? By far its most popular use is as a pet. Not only does this use easily make up more than 90% of Border Collies, they are quite successful and good pets–easily a Top 10 breed and perhaps as high as Top 5.  This has probably been the case for over a century going right back to the very founding days of the breed as a trial dog. It’s an undeniable truth that despite having the goal of creating winning trial dogs, the majority of puppies in a litter never stepped on a trial field.  This is true for all competitive endeavors, it’s just that all the hype and branding comes from the minority use.

Among the fraction of Border Collies that are trained and compete, there are many times more Border Collies who play Frisbee, Flyball, Agility, and Obedience than have ever entered a sheep or cattle trial; and their ability in all these venues is exemplary.  There isn’t another breed that can hold a candle to the Border Collie at dog sports, they are so dominant that they have been given a Border Collies Only division to compete in.  Participation and growth in dog sports is robust and although some performance events started as a side show to conformation shows, they are now independently sustainable and there are numerous organizations that organize dog sport events that have no connection to and compete directly with the AKC.

This isn’t a “paradigm shift” in the formal sense, as the sport dog in no way precludes the use of the “working” dog despite surpassing it in popularity.  I’ve been accused of putting dog sport Border Collies forth as “the new paradigm” but I make no such claim. Not only is ‘paradigm’ so over-used as to be meaningless, the original definition required a true revolution in understanding such that the use or way of thinking before the shift was eclipsed and supplanted (think “the earth is flat” to “the earth is round;” when you accept the latter, the former is meaningless).

Sport dogs and working dogs can co-exist and the value of the breed stock is not mutually exclusive.  Creating pet and sport Border Collies is not a revolution, it’s a concurrent evolution.  The reality is such though, that the market and demands of the sport world are larger and more intricate than the working breeders can provide.  Thus, breeders can and will continue to breed to a sport and pet standard despite the moral cries from the sheeple that they should not do so.

This is not speculative advocacy on my part, projecting what I wish the reality were, it is a simple observation of the extant truth.

We know that ancient man was picking his teeth with small sticks at the exact same time he began to domesticate the wolf.

The modern toothpick began as a utilitarian tool used by the native Brazilians to clean their teeth. The idea to mass produce these twigs–which had theretofore been whittled by hand–came to a marketing genius named Charles Foster who witnessed their utility and decided he could “sell ice to the Eskimos” by bringing machined and standardized toothpicks to the Brazilians and the world. Today, Brazil exports more toothpicks than any other nation.

While there’s no evidence that chimps cultivated wolves as animal companions, the bond between humans and canids does extend back to our very origins. It is likely that after proto-man held that scrap of meat in the fire with a proto-toothpick, he threw the scraps to his proto-dog. And like the toothpick, dogs were crudely hewn objects of utility before they were standardized by the whims of fashion.

Though readily promoted by manufacturers, usage drift is more often created by consumers of a product. People are natural inventors, and they are constantly finding new uses for common objects of all kinds. The best ideas propagate quickly through the culture and then become embraced by manufacturers as their own. Before there were Q-tips, young mothers wrapped a bit of cotton around the point of a toothpick and used it to clean out baby’s ears and nose. This practice came to be recommended by ladies’ magazines and advice columnists, and led to the invention of the Q-tip itself.

At first, the hard wooden stick terminating in soft cotton swabs suggested the toothpick connection, but today’s Q-tip disguises its origins with a white paper body that blends almost seamlessly into the swab ends. The latest supply of Q-tips bought for our bathroom goes even further in removing the product from its ancestry and infancy. Except perhaps for the ironic admonition to “Keep out of reach of children,” there is no hint on the package that these were once made exclusively for babies. On this “vanity pack,” Q-tips are described as “the ultimate beauty tool.”

Thus, products that result from usage drift over time can ultimately assume an identity that gives little hint of their true origins and once-primary use. The mass-produced wooden toothpick that Charles Forster introduced to Boston in the 1860s has given rise to countless fads, uses, and spinoff products, all of which ultimately owe their existence to his marketing genius, whether we realize it or not.

- Henry Petroski, Stick Figure, Slate 10/31/3007

The process where a technology evolves from the early adopters into the majority often involves friction between the elite early adopters who covet their history with the technology and the exclusivity they have enjoyed. This is evident in the Border Collie world where those who use the dogs strictly for “work” claim to be the inheritors of the storied old ways and the comparatively new adopters who don’t herd or who see herding as a sport rather than a religion are blasphemous corrupters.

I see the broadening appeal of the Border Collie as another example of usage drift. Just like the toothpick, the Border Collie is a technology that has been shaped by growing popularity and changes in fashion. And just like the Border Collie, there is no “ideal” toothpick, despite the brand name that suggests otherwise.

Despite being a rather simple piece of technology, the toothpick comes in many forms and serves several uses. The tapered tooth pick, single pointed or double, barrel shaped for easy dispensing, or the broad flat Jordan for easy manipulation. Smooth, rough, or wax coated; dyed, painted or lacquered; mint flavored. Wooden, bone, plastic, metal, or bamboo; wrapped in paper, cellophane, or naked. Adorned with dental floss or even frilly plastic pompoms.

We use them to clean our teeth, to sample hors d’oeuvres politely, to adorn our drinks with olives or umbrellas, to test the moisture in the middle of cooking cakes, and to construct bridges for science experiements.

Just as there is no singular, ideal use for a toothpick, I don’t believe there is a singular perfect use for the Border Collie. Not even herding and especially not sheep trials. If society has progressed just fine calling the many varieties of small sticks, singularly and collectively the same name, I don’t see any reason to rename the Border Collie. Nor do I see a compelling reason to limit the diversity of the breed by forcing a genetic split by closing the registries or limiting participation to a select group based upon politics.

reprint

THE COLLIE

The life story of the Collie is the history of pastoral life, for from the first day that man herded flocks he had a dog to help him.  There is a similarity in character and appearance between the sheep and cattle dogs of all countries, which points to their common origin, while the cunning and outward look of all indicate their descent from the wild dogs of nature.

Haig ISDS 252, International Supreme Champion 1921

The Collie or Sheep Dog in all countries is considered superior to other dogs in instinct and intelligence, and his countenance discloses sagacity, alert eagerness, and devotion to his master.  There is a great difference between the Collie of the bench shows and the old working Collie of the Highlands.

American and UK Champion Laund Lukeo 1924

The Collie of the bench shows is a fancier’s creation; a more graceful and beautiful animal does not exist.  He was produced from the old working type, but remote crossing and careful selection continued for many years has so radically changed him that he is almost a breed of his own.

The working qualities of the bench show Collie have been so sadly neglected that they are all but lost.  Certainly they are not to be compared in this respect with the Collie of the hills, bred on purely utilitarian lines.  In appearance, however, the bench show Collie is a much handsomer and more attractive type, for the working dog is on the nondescript order.  The latter vary in size and color; some are smooth coated, some are rough; some have prick ears, others half-dropped or drop, while many have what is known as a watch eye.  Some of the best workmen will weigh under forty pounds.  Occasionally you will see among the shepherds large, handsome black, white, and tan specimens with fair coats, but more will be all black in color, smooth coated, and small in size.  The most popular among the Scottish shepherds is the small black-and-white type with medium coats.

- The Complete Dog Book, William Bruette 1921

Sunnybank Lad, Albert Payson Terhune's famous Collie. Early 1900s.

It’s amazing how similar the dialogue is 90 years later concerning collies bred for show and those bred for work, although in this case the cast has changed slightly from “the bench show Collie”–what we now call the Rough Collie–to the show Border Collie and the “Collie of the hills” which is the working Border Collie.

I, of course, wouldn’t agree with the assessment that the overangulated, over-coated wedge head show collie is the most graceful and beautiful of animals, I much prefer old Haig to Laund Lukeo.  Even if we grant collies their unique traits compared to Border Collies, you must admit that Albert Terhune’s famous Lad, pictured left, is a far superior dog to the bench collie of the era.  He has a moderate and proportional head with large gorgeous and expressive eyes.

There is no hind if the “three point” or minuscule almond shaped ”oblique” eyes that are now the trademark of the show bred collie.  This dog’s ears are naturally set at the side of the head, a more pleasant and friendly look to the artificially taped ears of the show version.

The head is also less severe in the taper from snout backward, there’s a good deal of mouth up front.  Many show collies today have severely undershot jaws to accentuate the angle of the head by narrowing the front elevation and to make the profile more shallow.

The show collie pictured above just a few years after the death of Lad has significantly altered conformation, and none of it for the better in my opinion. Lad was an exceedingly handsome dog that a child could instantly fall in love with, I don’t see the same thing happening with the door-stop beady-eyed fashion collie.

Albert Terhune with his dogs Lad, Bruce, and Wolf 1917

If you look at Terhune with Lad and his other collies, you can see that they are clearly of the Old Time Farm Shepherd mold, not of the Highland Rough Collie or even the Border Collie.  To create this look today you’d probably have to cross an English Shepherd with a more moderately angled Rough Collie.  You can find similar looking dogs in the yellow part of the spectrum of Andy Ward’s ingenious Collie Spectrum interactive graphic.

Crazy dogs are crazy

This charming story graced the Nature section of the New York Times 132 years ago today.  It’s a good example of the sort of culture that has grown around the “dog days” of summer, which we find ourselves in now.

The Collie and the Provost -

About 13 years ago, a now deceased medical man, residing near Edinburgh, possessed a favorite collie, Cheviot by name. The incident I am about to relate I may mention, was related to me by the son of the gentleman in question, both father and son, along with a perfectly disinterested party, having corroborated the facts.

The then Provost of the burgh in which Cheviot resided, had issued an interdict against unmuzzled dogs during the “dog days,” and Cheviot submitted with no good grace to the operation of securing his jaws. Frequently Cheviot’s master and the members of the family spoke, in the dog’s hearing in no measured terms of the cruelty of the Provost’s order.

But the end of the “dog days” came, and “Cheviot’s” muzzle was removed. On the afternoon of the day of liberation, the Provist called on Cheviot’s master, to say that in the morning he had heard a dog whining at his front door. The Provost opened the door; Cheviot was in waiting, his muzzle in his mouth. One look at the Provost, and the muzzle was dropped at his feet, Cheviot scampering off in the highest glee, as if delighted to have had the opportunity of laying the cause of his grievance at the door of his enemy.
-Nature.
The New York Times
July 13, 1879

If his name has anything to do with his origins, our dog Cheviot just might have been a proto-Border Collie. This matches my theory of Queen Victoria’s dog Noble who was identified as a “Collie of the Cheviot Breed” belonging to the founding gene pool of what would in a few decades be called the Border Collie. The Cheviot Hills define the border between England and Scotland that the breed takes its name from.

Everyday is a dog-day around here.

The description of the dog certainly fits a level of precociousness that has long since left most collies bred for looks  but which persists in the Border Collie.  The breed remains very attune to human emotion and speech, and their ability to unintentionally learn English is often remarked upon.  First you start spelling words until they learn that too.  They also learn physical cues easily.

Mine know that when the laptop lid closes, it’s likely we’ll be leaving soon, so they rush to the door; if I inadvertently close the lid but don’t intend on leaving, they give me this “you bastard” look followed by digging up any toy they can find to demand that I at least play some Frisbee or ball in the house to appease them for the false alarm. “Outside,” “park,” “car,” “go,” and “class” are all instant action triggers for this lot; if you make the mistake of naming any of their toys, you’ve signed a verbal contract to play with that toy for at least 20 minutes or they’ll pee on your bed.

My dogs are also very attune to how doors and windows work.  They can open the french doors from both the inside (requires turning and pulling the handle) and the outside (turning and pushing), they can open the lower cabinets in the kitchen with their nose, and they can roll down the automatic windows in the car.  They are also aware of how the car doors work although they are unable to operate the handle.  While I was in Wyoming during the branding, Mercury ran off to explore the ranch twice.  The first time he managed to get into a closed 4×4 that had velcro doors that I had driven him around in earlier that morning.  Later, while I was off on an open 4×4 looking for him he came back and tried to get into my Jeep.  There were paw marks and scratches on the door handle and the paint at the edge of the door.  He knew I couldn’t leave without him if he stayed with the car.  Next time, I’ll leave the window down and save the paint job.

These four don't understand that they're supposed to be tired and lazy during the Dog Days.

The “dog days” are the stretch of time in midsummer when the combined heat and humidity make the afternoons unbearable and send humans and dogs alike seeking shelter in cool shade or the forgetfulness of a sultry siesta.

The dog days gestalt is an ancient concept in Western culture dating back at least to the Iliad, the oldest work of Western literature (~800 BC).  Homer uses an allusion to the dog star Sirius no less than three times to describe the sun’s rays off brilliant bronze armor, evoking not only the brightest star but also the concomitant ill fortune and death that is also associated with the summer sauna.

Mastiff head, Thessaly coin, 450 BC

And aging Priam was the first to see him
sparkling on the plain, bright as that star
in autumn rising, whose unclouded rays
shine out amid a throng of stars at dusk–
the one they call Orion’s dog, most brilliant,
yes, but baleful as a sign: it brings
great fever to frail men. So pure and bright
the bronze gear blazed upon him as he ran.

Virgil would parrot Homer 800 years later in his Aeneid:

“… even as when in the clear night comets glow blood-red in the baneful wise; or even as fiery Sirius, that bearer of drought and pestilence to feeble mortals, rises and saddens the sky with baleful light.”

The Greeks gave us the constellation Kyôn, meaning dog, which is one of the most ancient of words across all language.  The brightest star in the constellation and in the entire sky they named Seirios, meaning scorching; colloquially the star was known as Kyôn Aster, literally the dog-star.  The Romans would call the constellation Canis Major, the greater dog, and the star Sirius was referred to as Canicula meaning little dog.  They called the dog days dies caniculares meaning days of the little dogs, recognizing both Sirius and Canis Minor’s brightest star Procyon (meaning ‘before the dog’ seeing as it would rise in the sky before Sirius) as the two dog stars of summer.

Beware the Dog, from Pompeii

In ancient times, the Dog Star would return to the sky after a 70 day absence just before the annual flooding of the Nile in late July.  Because of Sirius’ brightness and proximity to the Sun during its return–what we call a star’s heliacal rising–the ancients believed that it added its heat to that of the sun creating the hotter weather.

This event was so central to the Egyptian culture that they timed their year on the cycle of this star which they called Sothis and deified as the goddess Sopdet; they also designed their mummification process to match this 70 day observance.  This calendar is called both the Sothic cycle and the Canicular period, and it gave the Egyptians a sidereal year that matches the one we use today almost exactly at 365.25 days per year.

The Egyptian timing of their new year survives in the Greek name for the winds which descend upon  the Mediterranean coinciding with the dog days.  The Etesian winds (from the Greek for year), are an annual phenomenon which the fishermen referred to as the “meltem” short for mal temps meaning bad times.  The strength of the winds caused hazardous conditions for the small craft, but on land they brought welcome relief to the stagnant conditions characteristic of the dog days.

The Etesiae blow after the summer solstice and the rising of the dog-star: not at the time when the sun is closest nor when it is distant; and they blow by day and cease at night. The reason is that when the sun is near it dries up the earth before evaporation has taken place, but when it has receded a little its heat and the evaporation are present in the right proportion; so the ice melts and the earth, dried by its own heat and that of the sun, smokes and vapours.

- Aristotle, Meteorology  350 B.C.

Aristotle also mentions the dog days in both Physics and Metaphysics.

We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter.
…
If in the dog-days there is wintry and cold weather, we say this is an accident, but not if there is sultry heat, because the latter is always or for the most part so, but not the former.

Dog and Star petroglyph, Utah

As the classical derivation of the name faded, the common folk embellished the days with their own interpretations.  Common wisdom said that the days would make women more passionate and men more feverish, and dogs themselves would succumb more easily to rabies, lethargy, and madness.  People under the influence of Sirius were called “star struck,” “dogging,” or “dog tired” and we retain these uses today.

Dogs, of all animals, were thought most affected by the annual reappearance of Sirius. Dogs were believed to suffer at this time of year and their panting was an indication of internal desiccation and excessive dryness.  When this occurred, dogs were in danger of becoming rabid and their saliva poisonous.  Humans could then become rabid and die from a dog bite.

-  Sirius: Brightest Diamond in the Night Sky, J.B. Holberg

The association of the dog star is not uniquely Western, hinting at an even more ancient cultural association.  The ancient Chinese called Sirius Tian Lang for “heavenly wolf” and associated it with the bridge between heaven and hell.  Their interpretation mirrors the ancient Egyptian as the soul must be weighed and perfected before passage is allowed.

Clay dog from Nineveh, c. 645 BC

The ancient Babylonians referred to Sirius as ‘Kak-shisha translated “the Dog that Leads” and alternately “a star of the south.”   Later Mesopotamian cuneiform call the star Kal-bu ”the dog” and Kakab-lik-u the ”Star of the Dog.”  The Assyrians called it “Dog of the Sun,”  The ancient Akkadians named it “Dog Star of the Sun,” and the Phoenicians dubbed it Hannabeah ”the one who barks.”

There are also numerous and intriguing associations of Sirius with dogs and wolves from throughout North America. To the Alaskan Inuit of the Bering Straits, Sirius is the “Moon Dog.”  When the moon comes near Sirius, high winds will follow.  Among the Tohono O’odham of the southwestern deserts, Sirius is the dog that follows mountain sheep, a description that was shared with the Seri who lived to the south along the Gulf of California, in Mexico.

To the Blackfoot of the north-western Great Plains the star was “dog-face.”  Among the Cherokee, whose ancestral home was the central Appalachian Mountain region, Sirius and Antares are the dog stars that guard the ends of the “path of souls,” the Milky Way.  Sirius, in the winter sky, guards the eastern end, while Antares, in the summer sky, guards the western end.  A departing soul must carry enough food to placate both dogs and pass beyond, or spend eternity wandering the “path of souls.”

Alternatively, the Pawnee of Nebraska have an elaborate and well-developed mythology tied to the heavens.  The Skidi (or Wolf) band of the Pawnee call Sirius the “Wolf Star” and the “White Star.”  According to Skidi cosmology, Sirius brought death into the world and would escort deceased tribal members along the “spirit pathway” (the Milky Way) to the place of the dead in the south.  During times of a sacrificial ceremony, a tribal representative of the White Star would sit in the southwest corner of the lodge to watch over the ill-fated sacrificial maiden.  Among other Pawnee, Sirius was the Coyote Star, the trickster.  The Northern Osage, of the south-central United States, regarded Sirius as the “Wolf that hangs by the side of Heaven.”

- ibid

It should not be surprising that our cultural ties with dogs are so ingrained and universal. Sadly, cuddling up to one of them when the weather is like this only reminds me of the more sweltering connotations of this time of year.  That doesn’t stop me though, they’re too cute to kick off the bed.

Happy Dog Days!

Nancy Telfer and her Border Collies, 1943

Telfer is old Scottish name that has cemented itself in the border region beginning with the Norman conquest, through the era of the Border Reivers along with other Border Collie surnames like Turnbull, and into the very foundation of the Border Collie breed.  The storied Old Hemp was born to Adam Telfer in 1893, and border collies have stayed in the family for generations since.

When Dave at Little Heelers wrote about the Formakin Canine Stars (which also include a couple of talented border collies), he included a video of the dogs in action.  Also on that video site I found a video from 1943 which features Nancy Telfer a Northumbrian trainer of  sheepdog champions:

SHEEP CHAMPION TRAINER – Video – British Pathe.

Max Kerr and his dog, Fuhrer

German National Identity

Perhaps more than any other breed, the GSD grew out of a specific cultural movement and was fashioned to be an embodiment of the culture and values of German nationalism.  After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire there was hardly a “German” generation for centuries that did not suffer a civil or foreign war.

It’s easy to fall into the mistaken belief that the map of Europe has been settled into neat countries whose borders haven’t changed and whose languages fit nicely into those offered in high school: Spanish, French, Italian, and German; monolithic nations, cultures, and people.  But what we today call Germany was one of the most fragmentary corners of the globe: over 200 independent fiefdoms and the legacy of several waves of foreign invaders from every direction had to be distilled to create the German state.

This distillation was mimicked in the creation of the GSD.  It’s not a coincidence that a breed from the north and a breed from the south were combined and advertised as foundation stock; Germany has had a historical north-south divide and any breed that would be embraced by the entire country would need to appeal to both audiences.  Similarly, the Third Reich combined the militarism and discipline of the Prussians in the north with the beer hall culture and engineering prowess of Bavaria in the south.  Although it was a shock to modern ears to hear that the GSD was actually more mastiff than shepherd, such hybridization of purpose makes perfect sense not only in what the breed was designed for, but also as a reflection of the culture of the time: farmers beating their plow shares into swords.

Where that Tacitus Lie comes from

Hitler with a model GSD in what is most likely a propaganda photo.

In the early nineteenth century nationalism emerged as a force in Germany, as elsewhere. Johann Gottlob Fichte, in his ‘Speeches to the German Nation‘ (1807-8), inspired by Tacitus’ work, urged that the German people had retained its characteristics unchanged from Roman times and must fight to preserve its national identity. Remarkably, Fichte avoided the ‘biological’ or racial argument. It was left to the French writer, Count Arthur Gobineau, in his Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-5) to proclaim the superiority of the Germanic or Nordic race, again and again basing his case on Tacitus (although also criticizing him for his excessively negative portrayal of the Germans).

The process was taken further by a naturalized German of English origin, Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927), who enjoyed considerable success with his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1898): Tacitus’ Germany was again exploited to demonstrate that the ‘Aryans’ were responsible for all that was great and creative in European culture.  From here it was a short step to the glorification in the Third Reich of the ancient Germans as forerunners of the National Socialist racial ideas.

Writing on the origin and ethnic history of the Germans (in 1935), the leading Nazi race theorist H.F.K. Günther went well beyond the usual list of qualities vouched for by Tacitus: racial purity, love of freedom, moral rectitude, loyalty (the origin of the Treue stressed so much by the SS), and the rest.  Günther could even find in chapter 12 of Germany, on the old Germanic death penalty, justification for eliminating degenerate elements from society: bizarre as it may seem, Tacitus was being misused to justify the policy which culminated in genocide.  Given the approval of Tacitus’ Germany expressed by Rosenberg, Himmler, and others, it is no surprise that the work has been described as ‘among the hundred most dangerous books ever written’ (by A. Momigliano in 1956).

- Introduction to Tactitus’ Agricola and Germany, A.R. Birley

This is the very same Tacitus passage that early GSD adopters fabricated a link to and which modern breed boosters still evoke with pleasure.  So powerful is the desire to match one’s identity with history and importance, to merge name with meaning, that “the wolf-dog from the lands around the Rhine” is too irresistible to pass up, too precious to even verify.

By Any Other Name

The GSD invading Poland

But that’s what you do when your real identity doesn’t match the image you are desperate to portray.  You invent a pedigree and a good story.  Adolf Hitler was inbred (his parents were uncle/half-niece) in a family with prevalent and severe mental health issues, lacked Aryan heritage, and had a surname that was adopted on speculation so as not to go through life as Adolf Schicklgruber, generously translated as “shit hole digger.”

After the war when the name became too much of a liability, the surviving branch of Hitlers in America changed their surname to Stewart-Houston: an obvious homage to Houston Stewart Chamberlain.  It seems these Hitlers weren’t so troubled by the pan-Germanism, Aryan supremacy, or anti-Semitism advocated by Chamberlain, they just didn’t want to be associated with so obvious a name.

Likewise, the German Shepherd dog had a name change after the first World War, in the same sort of revisionist whitewashing.  The Allied Entente countries renamed the German Shepherd the “Alsatian Wolf-dog” to remove as much of the German stigma as possible.  There’s no evidence that the French or the people of Alsace played any significant role in the formation of the breed.  Unlike German Toast, which has successfully been renamed French Toast in the English speaking world, the attempt to remove the German from the GSD ultimately failed.

The conceptualization, genetic origins, and bureaucratic infrastructure of the breed was inherently and inextricably German, so much so that even the animosity of two world wars could not permanently unhitch the breed from its name and its German identity, nor could the anti-German sentiment prevent the GSD from making major inroads in popularity in the West.

A dog with "fierce blue eyes, red hair, and large bodies"

The GSD as Archetype

It is important for all dog enthusiasts to understand the history and culture of the German Shepherd dog because in several ways they are a benchmark breed for dog culture, show culture, trial culture, breeding ethics, and breeding methods that are pervasive across many breeds and which persist to this day.  Over several posts I will examine these aspects of the GSD and hopefully draw relevant parallels to dog culture in general.

The fusion of the breed image with an identity group, the mostly undocumented use of several breeds during creation, the advertising of a different set of breeds used, emphasis on appearance of efficacy over existential ability, the bogus ancient breed history, the Platonic standard of perfection, the structure and organization of a breed/kennel club, the style of competition and evaluation, the belief in and imperative for “improvement,” and the formula to get there are all documented and often championed in the GSD.

At my signal, unleash "Hell," the proto-GSD.

Ancient Aspirations

In constructing the new German national identity at the dawn of the modern era, native intellectuals had to overcome the last thousand years of regional, ethnic, and religious identities of the constituent groups within the new German state, and that necessitated finding or creating a more ancient and more inclusive narrative.  They found this narrative in one of the first historical mentions of the Germanic peoples, Roman historian Tacitus’ work “Germania,” an oft quoted source of inspiration.  The following passage was the most mined:

I myself accept the view of those who judge that the peoples of Germany have never been contaminated by intermarriage with other nations and that the race remains unique, pure, and unlike any other.  As a result, their physical appearance too, if one may generalize about so large a population, is always the same: fierce blue eyes, red hair, and large bodies.  Their bodies, however, are strong only for a violent outburst.  These same large frames cannot last out for work and effort, and can scarcely tolerate thirst or heat, although their climate has made them accustomed to cold and their poor soil to hunger.

- Tacitus, Germania

You can see how this one paragraph was grossly distorted to justify an entire generation of genocide and persecution in the form of eugenics, the Final Solution, forced sterilizations and planned breedings; not only in Germany but across the globe.  The notions of physical conformation, breed purity, and superiority are all embodied in this quote.  This passage alone has elevated Germania to one of “the most dangerous books ever written.”

A wolf-like dog in Germania, from Gladiator

The Tacitus Lie

Given how integral Tactius’ work was to the intellectual foundations of the new German state, it’s not a far leap for advocates of this new breed to seek similar ancient roots for their new concoction.  While almost every modern GSD website fails to mention the Nazi’s role in the history of the breed, almost all of them evoke Tacitus mentioning the “the wolf-like dog of the country around the Rhine.”

I read Latin and have a copy of Germania within arm’s reach, and no such attribute exists in any edition I have or have been able to track down.  Mark Derr repeats this in Dog’s Best Friend, but when asked for the source he now concludes that it’s a “misattribution.” Bruce Fogle D.V.M. can likewise supply no source to this quote from his book on the GSD other than repeating what other authors have said without reference.  Some webpages even say that breed founder Max von Stephanitz wrote of the dog being mentioned in Tacitus, but again, I find no mention of Tacitus in the works of von Stephanitz I’ve found translated into English.  I fully suspect that this is yet another in a long line of entirely bogus ancient breed histories by modern breeders looking to tie their dogs to ancient culture.

Be it fabrication or misattribution, the important observation is that so many GSD aficionados have adopted the story as truth.   This is what they want to be true, what is compelling, what they would wish to be true unbound by facts and reality.  This is where we discover more about the men and movements behind the dogs as opposed to the actual dogs themselves.

The GSD, like most other breeds, comes complete with an entirely fabricated and dubiously ancient breed history, meant to provide evidence of quality or longevity or superiority; and this breed history is intrinsically linked with the special interest, in this case the German people, and the formation of its public identity.

It was always a privilege to speak before our Veterans and in some small way say thank you for their service and sacrifice.

Christopher Paul Landauer
Cherry Creek High School
Grade 12
Given on several occasions in 1999

Sacred Honor

In the last words of the Declaration of Independence, the signers made a solemn promise to the cause of freedom:  ”With a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”  To the English king these words were high treason.  In the War of Independence that followed, all the signers became hunted men.  Five of them paid with their lives.  Seventeen lost everything they owned.  But in the end, they kept their promise of freedom and independence to all Americans who followed them.

Our Constitution is the fulfillment of their sacred promise.  It stands as a flaming torch above the tidal waves of tyranny that have swept country after country into oceans of despair.  It is an elegant, simple document based on a profound principle: that common men can govern themselves, turnover power peaceably, and become great nations—without kings, without dictators, and without privileged classes.

The endurance of our Constitution lies in the first three words:  ”We the people.”  Every citizen is included in all three branches of our government.  All citizens influence these branches by direct vote, by representative vote, and by direct participation.  We the people decide who will be chief executive, we the people decide who will make our laws.  We the people sit on juries that decide justice and we the people vote for who will judge us.  These are the rights of all free men.  And these are the duties of each American citizen.

The Constitution forged a mighty chain made up of American citizens that stretches from you and me, across two centuries of time, to Washington and Jefferson.  The chains of our Constitution have endured the searing red flames of invasion, civil war, world wars, economic depressions, and a succession of evil ideologies that would rob us of our freedoms.  But will the chains of our Constitution survive the rust and corrosion of our own apathy, cynicism, and laziness?

It is ominous that in 1999 many Americans demand more rights, but reject their duties.  The centuries have dimmed their understanding that every one of our hard-earned rights comes with a duty.  A duty that cannot be ignored, or avoided, or shunted aside.

Before all other duties, we owe our country the duty to defend it from our enemies.  To serve when called.  If need be, to give up our lives.  As Thomas Jefferson foresaw, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  Our Constitution is written in the blood of a million patriots.  In every generation, thousands of Americans have paid with their lives so that the rest of us can enjoy the blessings of liberty.  Yet, many of my generation reject this duty to serve and defend our country just as many did in the generation before mine, sitting out the Vietnam War in Canada or Sweden. When the war ended, they returned home to enjoy all of the same rights as those who had served.

Look next at our sacred duty to vote.  In the presidential election of 1896, 79% of eligible Americans voted.  One hundred years later in 1996, only 54% voted.  In its original form, the Constitution allowed only free white men over the age of twenty-one to vote.   After five hundred thousand Americans died in the Civil War, Congress passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, freeing the slaves, making them citizens and giving them the right to vote.  In 1996, only 50% of African Americans voted, and only 27% of Hispanics voted.  In 1920 the 19th Amendment was passed by Congress giving women the right to vote.  In 1996, only 55% of women voted.  In 1971, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to eighteen from twenty-one.  In 1996, only 31% of the eighteen to twenty year olds voted.  31%.  The trivial reasons for not voting would make Washington and Jefferson and all patriots weep.

Our government is made up of imperfect men.  When our government fails, the cause is not the Constitution.  The cause is the failure of the electorate to vote for honorable leaders.  Millions of Americans have cast aside their sacred right to vote, the one and only weapon that can drive out of our government the morally bankrupt, the incompetent, and the tyrants to be.  The deadly silence of the electorate allows a minority of voters to elect presidents, special interests to dictate our agenda, and a handful of men to squander our tax dollars.  Our founders saw in a majority of common men the collective wisdom to see through lies, false promises and blind ambition.  Surely, we have among us men and women with noble hearts and with fine minds willing to lead.

The judicial branch defines the scope of our morality as a people, our tolerance, and our commitment to equality under the law.  This duty has become sorely abused and twisted.  Our best-educated citizens shun jury duty.  We have allowed lawyers to pervert the system by demanding only jurors with little education and little experience.  We allow politicians to appoint more judges and take from us the right to elect them.  There can only be justice when we all participate.

We deserve better.  Our founders deserve better.   Our future demands better.  49% of our high school seniors do not know that our right to freedom of religion comes from the Constitution.   It is clear that we must restore our Constitution in the minds of each of our citizens, our school children, and our immigrants.  We must teach this generation that knows only peace, the price of that peace and the duties that keep us strong.  In every classroom, in every newspaper, on every television we should demand that our living Constitution be taught, explained, and understood.  We must insist that all citizens learn the Constitution, unvarnished and untainted.

Throughout the land we must restore and renew all the duties upon which our Constitutional rights depend.  We must vote.  We must serve on juries.  We must pay taxes.  We must reject fanatics that despise all government and see only conspiracy and evil wherever they look.  We must flog with disgust the cowards who mock us for loving our country while they desecrate our flag.

Our Constitution is the envy of the world.  It is the bane of tyrants.  It is a bastion of hope for the oppressed of Earth.  We must protect it from those who fear greatness, worship weakness and preach hopelessness.  We cannot let our precious inheritance to be stolen away by the dark and silent thieves, ignorance and indifference.

We must each of us, take upon ourselves the duties of free men.  To read our Constitution, to understand it, and to live the Constitution.  To insist that our lawmakers and judges follow it.  In an imperfect world, governed by the imperfect, our Constitution is the safe broad path between the claws of tyranny and the teeth of anarchy.  On our journey from a glorious past to a noble and glorious future, let no man drop the torch!  Let no man throw away our fire!

Wilson's Cap ISDS 3036, Most Influential Sire, CEA carrier/affected

Collie Eye Anomaly is an inherited genetic disease which causes abnormal structure within the eye.  It has variable expression from mild dysfunction to blindness and there is no treatment.  CEA is one of the few genetic diseases in Border Collies that there is a DNA test (developed in 2005) for, and thus it has gotten more attention than other endemic Border Collie diseases that do not have tests; i.e. epilepsy, exercised induced collapse, cancer, etc.

The ABCA estimates:

The incidence of CEA in Border Collies in North America is about 2.5%. The carrier rate is probably ten times that figure, or 25%.

This is consistent with a disease that has reached a stable saturation according to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium principle.  If we have 2.5% affected and the other conditions of equilibrium are satisfied we would expect 26.6% of Border Collies to be carriers and 70.9% to be clear.  This would lead to an affected allele frequency of 15.8% (2.5 + 26.6/2).

Although 25 in 1,000 affected isn’t as pervasive as we see with some other diseases or even CEA in other collie breeds, it has a significant penetration within the breed.

For comparison, some of the the most common single cell autosomal recessive disorders in humans are sickle cell anemia at 0.23 in 1,000; cystic fibrosis at 0.4 in 1,000; and familial hypercholeserolemia at 2 in 1,000.  Even widespread diseases like Alzheimer’s at 14.5 in 1,000 and color blindness at 13 in 1,000 in humans are half of the incidence of CEA in Border Collies.

Because CEA is a simple autosomal recessive allele, a dog needs two copies–one from each parent–to be affected, and will be a carrier if only one is inherited. The nature of this disease and the growing pool of DNA tested dogs makes it possible to trace the disease back into history and apply probabilities that a given ancestor was affected, a carrier, or clear of the disease, even though those dogs died long before DNA testing became available.

Using this method, it is 99% likely that popular sire Wiston Cap was a carrier for CEA.

Jock Richardson and Wiston Cap, Second Most Influential Sire, CEA Carrier

The ABCA acknowledges this without defaming the dog that appears on their seal:

Because some of the breed’s most notable herding dogs carried one copy of the CEA gene, the disease began to crop up when these notable dogs appeared in both the dam’s and sire’s lineage. As a result, some of the best herding dogs are carriers…

… Autosomal recessive diseases like CEA show up because people have line bred to top herding dogs which happen to carry one bad copy of that gene, eventually doubling up on it and causing affected progeny as well as some excellent herding dogs.

Although the ABCA’s Health Committee has gingerly broached the subject of line-breeding, genetic disease, and the popular sire effect; trialing culture apologist Donald McCaig sings a different tune:

I’ve heard the complaint that Border Collies aren’t any healthier than other purebred dogs, that pedigrees w/o Wiston Cap (d 1979) are rare. True about Cap. And intensive breeding to a single sire was, genetically, a risky idea. As it happens, the community dodged the bullet: Wiston Cap didn’t have anything wrong with him. And there hasn’t been another Wiston Cap – the community is “flavor of the month” and what I want in a dog aren’t necessarily the same combination of virtues and vices another equally qualified handler might want.

Well, we know that isn’t true.  We know that Wiston Cap was a carrier for CEA and we know that he has cemented his genes into the breed.

His genetic influence on the breed is 13.52%, meaning that for the CEA allele, Wiston Cap alone contributed 6.76% of the bad allele frequency.  That’s ~43% of the allele frequency we calculated above.  It’s hard to say that the community has “dodged a bullet” when one dog, not that long ago, being over bred and his descendants linebred could have single handedly accounted for 126 in 1,000 carriers and 5 in 1,000 affecteds for CEA.

The other falsehood in McCaig’s analysis is that there wasn’t another Wiston Cap and that this other popular sire was perfectly healthy.  Despite his fecundity, Wiston Cap didn’t quite reach the heights of his ancestor J.M. Wilson’s Cap (who appears 25 times in Wiston Cap’s pedigree).  Wilson’s Cap is the dog with the most genetic influence on the Border Collie breed determined by recorded pedigrees at 16.91% influence.

According to the same historical analysis that determined Wiston Cap was a CEA carrier, it’s 63% likely that Cap was CEA affected, 36% chance he was a carrier, and 1% chance that he was normal.

If Cap was affected, he alone would account for the entire frequency of CEA within border collies.  A 16.91% allele frequency would theoretically result in a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium of 2.9% affected, 28.1% carrier, and 69% clear.  This is comparable to the estimate of the disease published by the ABCA.

If Cap was a carrier, he alone would account for 53.5% of the CEA frequency.

Applying the weighted average given to us by the historical analysis of 13.96% allele frequency, Cap would account for 88.6% of the CEA in the breed.

The two most influential sires in Border Collies both carried CEA.

Now, correlation does not prove causation, and I am not contending that CEA was a new mutation seen only in Cap and that he alone is the reason we see it in Border Collies.  What IS true is that should Cap have been affected by a brand new deleterious mutation, he was such a popular sire, so over bred and his descendants line-bred on him so often, that you’d expect to see that disease as widespread in the breed as we see with CEA.